The fact that you can post pictures to this blog system is actually what finally drove me to start up a blog. I am a compulsive amateur photographer looking for ways to expose my work to the general public in an attempt to validate my abilities.
So here I go. To start off with I present my favorite snow leopard. The explanation of this picture is that my local zoo, Brookfield Zoo, located in Brookfield, Illinois, was going to have a photo competition and I was on a mission to get the best pictures I possibly could to see if I could win.
So on March 26th, 2006, I set out to begin my quest. After stopping by a camera store to pick up a new lens that I felt would round out my lens selection for zoo work I strode boldly forth into the zoo. And since I had little experience in that sort of thing, I basically took pictures of EVERYTHING.
However one event stands out in my memory. Have you ever seen the movie "Fierce Creatures"? In it there's a scene where Jami Lee Curtis' character encounters a gorilla which has escaped from his enclosure. Of course at first she's frightened, but then there's a whole scene where the gorilla gently touches her in a sort of curious manner, never threatening her, and she's overcome by the experience. She walks outside in a daze and a group of zoo employees see her and ask what happened to her. She's at a loss for words, and an employee who recognizes her expression suggests that she'd just "made contact". All the other employees react as if this is a standard thing that happens to people working with animals like that. I'd always wondered if that was a real thing that happens to people who work in zoos. Not suddenly encountering escaped gorillas, of course.. but if there was some moment where people experience a deep connection with animals like that and that moment is a sort of shared experience among zoo workers.
Well here's a picture of that moment for me. I don't work at the zoo, but even from the public side of things the same experience seems to occur.
I had been all over the zoo (except for the bear area, which I completely missed because it's kind of tucked away in one corner), and as I said I was just taking every kind of picture I could think of. At the end of the visit I reached the snow leopards. They have a very good snow leopard enclosure which has a large viewing window, on the leopard's side there's a ledge located right next to the window where the leopards like to perch. It's close enough where you could literally reach out and touch them if not for the barrier of glass.
I had been taking pictures of the snow leopards for some time. I've always been a bit of a feline fan, so it was hardly a surprise to find myself captivated by them. I had to work in cycles, taking pictures when I had the area to myself and then backing away to make room when other groups showed up. I didn't want to block the window for the kids.
All through the day I'd seen people tapping on the glass of the various windows, trying to get the attention of the various animals. During one of my stand back and wait cycles I couldn't help but watch this one particular cretin tapping on the glass, trying to get the leopard to look at him. He was there with children, as an adult he should have been setting an example.. instead the best he can do is tap on the glass trying to wake up a resting leopard, ignoring the signs posted all over the place begging that people such as him in fact do NOT tap on the windows.
The thing is, this leopard was clearly used to this kind of juvenile behavior. I wish I knew if it was the male or the female, I hate simply referring to it as "it".. but it's the best I can do. Anyway, it refused to react to the tapping. It wouldn't even swivel an ear in response. Rather than realize that it was futile (and annoying) this guy decided that the answer was to make more noise. Having exhausted his range of tapping he moved on to pounding on the glass.
Still no response. The thing is he kept on pounding. The leopard wasn't moving a muscle, and this guy kept on pounding on the glass. I had this thought about who exactly was supposed to be the intelligent creature. The leopard clearly understood what was going on, it knew that there was no point in paying attention to the noise. This guy didn't even realize that much, his train of thought appeared to be "the kitty isn't responding to my pounding, must pound more" repeating on an infinite loop. Eventually he gave up, or more to the point his kids had probably gotten bored and they moved on.
Alone once again I walked back to the glass and raised my camera. It was a tricky shot, the glass wasn't exactly clean, besides which to shoot a leopard lying on the ledge you have to shoot through the glass at a strong angle which isn't a good idea overall, you're just asking for chromatic aberration or other distortions.
But the leopard opened its eyes and looked at me. The incessant pounding from the idiot failed to elicit any response at all, but standing there in silence I was apparently worthy of attention. For a moment all I could do was look back at the large, densely furred feline. That was the moment where I made contact. To me it was the feline body language equivalent of saying "hey, how's it going". So I said hello back.. yes I talk to animals. I'm sure they don't understand the words, but there's the possibility that they'll understand the tone I use. In this case of course the words probably didn't even penetrate the thick glass, but.. such considerations did not occur to me at the moment.
Eventually I managed to get back to the task at hand and snapped off some pictures. They ended up being some of my favorite pictures ever, and I came close to entering one in the photo contest. But I could only enter one picture, and I had to make a tactical decision and go with a bear shot that I felt had a stronger emotional impact (my personal experience that gave me the emotional tie to the shot doesn't really help with the judges).
As I take every opportunity to mention, I placed second.
The snow leopards continue to be some of my favorite subjects. They're not always accessible, being cats they do seem to like to sleep for most of the day, often in places where I can't get a good angle on them at all. But every so often I get a really good angle and fire off ten or twenty pictures or more (oh the joys of digital photography) and consider the whole trip worthwhile on that event alone.
I should mention that if you click on the picture you can access a higher resolution version of it.
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